Zapped
by Writergel
Summary: My friend and I are zapped into the world of Percy Jackson. Absolute chaos and an epic quest ensue. Fan character insert, rated T for some violence and mild cursing. Please read and review.
1. Chapter 1

**'Ello! I am Lindsey Lohan! No, not really. I am Writergurl616, and since you were ever so nice as to come to my story, I will tell you a little bit about the plot: Me and my friend Amber are zapped into the world of Percy Jackson (hence the title) and must go on an epic quest But first we end up in the home of the gods. XD Olympus will never be the same.**

Chapter 1: We take the weirdest (and shortest) trip ever

"All I'm saying is, they better not blame me for this. I mean, they blame me for everything." Said Amber.

"That's because you_ cause_ everything" I replied, rolling my eyes. Amber is really cool, and one of my best friends. But she has this serious habit of getting into trouble. And_ I_ have this serious habit of getting dragged in along with her. And, for some reason, the trouble we get in is a little…extreme. But I had to admit, getting half our school blown up is a little out there, even for Amber. We were currently riding the bus home. It was earlier than when we usually went home (we got out of class early-you know, because of the whole school-blowing-up thing). I was re-reading The Last Olympian for about the fifth or sixth time. But I was also keeping an eye on my friend. I mean a 14 year old girl with a serious case of ADHD whose dream job is to be a pyrotechnician? Can you SEE any good coming out of that? Add that to the weird trouble that seems to follow us around, and I was afraid to let Amber out of my sight. Too bad we have like, _zero_ classes together this year. After replying to my all-too-true remark (which was unusual- I was known for my sarcastic comments) Amber leaned in the seat and started reading over my shoulder.

"Ooooh, the Lydian drakon! I love this part!" she squealed. One of the things Amber and I have in common is a love of the Percy Jackson series. I mean, come on, gods, monsters, demigods, magic, epic battles, all in a modern day setting so you can actually understand what they're saying? It's like candy for my brain. Amber's brain too. So we're both reading about the drakon, when all of a sudden the book starts to vibrate, so hard you can see the words going back and forth. "Hope, what are you doing!" Amber asked fearfully. Now the pages were getting hot, heat coming off the paper in waves.

"I'm not doing anything!" I yelped. Then came the wind. An enormous gust of it tore the pages out my grasp and they began flipping madly. As soon as we reached the last page, there was a huge _WHOOM_.

The flash was the last thing I remember.


	2. Chapter 2

**Note: this story will be in alternating viewpoints so this chapter is from Amber's POV.**

**Disclaimer: Do I LOOK like Rick Riordan? There's a reason they call this site **_**fan fiction. **_**So I don't own Percy Jackson *sniff* . . .**

Chapter 2: We fall off chairs

When I first woke up everything was fuzzy. I felt the surface around me, expecting to feel the bus seat. Instead I felt rocks. _Okay,_ I thought _I know bus seats are uncomfortable, but this is ridiculous._ Looking around, I saw Hope sitting up next to me. Like me, she looked kinda dazed and confused. We were on a stone sidewalk in what looked like a Renaissance fair. You know, if ancient Greece was the Renaissance. There were all these cool little market stand thingies, along with ginormous buildings that looked like temples. But I knew they couldn't be real. I mean, psh, who builds _temples_ anymore? They must've just been really fancy banks or something. But there sure were a lot of them.

"Hey Amber! Do you know where we are?" I looked at Hope again. She was standing now, and surveying the street with a strange look on her face. I stared at her.

"Hope, do you really expect me to know where we are? I mean, you're the smart one. I'm just here to look good."

"No, you're _here_ to cause trouble. Actually, I don't know why you're here. Come to think of it, I don't know why _I'm_ here, either."

"Whoa, Hope we don't really need to go into all that philosophy stuff, now do we? Why you're here, why I'm here, why the universe-"

"I don't mean _that_ kind of here, Amber! I mean _here_ here, in this weird mountain village place." Hope interjected while making an annoyed face at me.

"Oh," I replied "I dunno why we're here." I kinda expected Hope to look annoyed again, but she just shrugged and turned back toward the marketplace.

"Well, we can always find out why we're here later. What's more important right now is where we are." Hope turned back to me and held out her hand. "So Amber, are you ready to explore?"

"I was born ready." I said, and took her hand pulled myself up. We walked down the cobblestones, staring at just about everything. One of the street vendors offered us a free sample of these brownie-on-a-stick things, which I took. It tasted kinda weird, but good. Hope stole some pieces and chewed on them as we continued walking.

Eventually we came to this _huge_ building. It was really big and fancy, with columns and carvings, the whole shebang. We hadn't gone into any of the other places, but this was at the end of the street, so we entered.

Inside was a big fancy hall decorated with statues and armor and tons of other shiny stuff. I went to go touch what looked like a solid gold breastplate, but Hope grabbed my wrist before I could get within five feet. I swear it's like that girl has eyes in the back of her head. I did manage to touch one thing, though. A statue of a huge, buff dude in Greek armor. But the second, and I mean _second_, I touched his heel, the whole thing fell apart! That left me staring at a pile of stone pieces with a disbelieving look on my face.

"Amber!" I heard Hope yell from the next room.

"It wasn't my fault!" I yelped, throwing my hands in the air like I was on a cop show.

"Amber! Get in here! NOW!" she shouted again.

"But I didn't-it just- aw come on!" I yelled.

"Amber whatever it is you broke I'm sure we can pay for it. Now hurry up! You gotta see this." Curiosity immediately taking over, I entered the room Hope had been shouting from. And caught my breath. We were standing in the middle of an enormous throne room, complete with enormous thrones. I mean seriously, these things were_ huge_. And they were all different. There was one that looked like it was woven out of grapevines. Another one was gorgeous, but it reeked like Hollister. A third looked like a mechanical recliner, with all these cool gears whirring inside. Hope was there too, staring fixedly at something in the corner of the room. I followed her line of sight, and saw a sphere of water hovering a few feet above the ground. Floating around in said sphere was by far the weirdest animal I'd ever seen. It had the front half of a calf and the back half of a serpent, like someone had cross-bred a cow and a really big eel.

"Okay I can see two logical explanations for this. One, this is an incredibly long and vivid dream, or two, you put something in my juice." Hope said, still staring at the cow-eel thing. I, for one, was highly offended by this.

"What! No! I don't play around with drugs! I play around with fire!" I exclaimed. Hope shook her head and turned back to the thrones.

"Hey!" she exclaimed "Maybe we can find some sort of manufacturing labels on these chairs that'll tell us where we are."

"What if they're imported?" I asked.

"Amber, who on _Earth_ would transport chairs this big?" Hope replied, rolling her eyes at me like_ I_ was the crazy one. Before I could reply, she somehow hoisted herself onto a throne carved with peacocks. With one leg on and one leg off, Hope got a strange look on her face. Then she shrieked and fell off, hands clapping to her ears like she'd heard some terrible noise. I made sure she was okay, then turned my attention to the throne to the right of the one Hope had fallen off of. It didn't have any decoration, but it was incredibly cool looking and shiny. I started to do what Hope had done, and pulled myself onto the throne seat. Then it happened. It felt like a thunderstorm exploded in my brain. I lost my balance; again, as Hope had done, but before I fell I grabbed what felt like a metal rod off the seat. Then my head hit the floor and everything went black.


	3. Chapter 3

**A new chapter, a new POV. It's me again! Thanks to Lilac Di Angelo and the person who didn't leave a name for being my first reviewers! Virtual bakies for you!**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Percy Jackson. I have never claimed to, so DON'T SUE ME!**

Chapter 3: Amber blows a hole

"Ugh . . ." I moaned, getting up of the floor of the throne room. "Note to self: do not get on any more giant chairs." Then I looked around and saw Amber lying at the base of the throne next to mine. She was holding this bronze rod thing and her eyes were closed. I decided she was okay after looking her over. I was pretty sure she hit her head when she fell. So yeah, she'll probably be okay. Then I turned and jumped about a foot in the air. Standing there looking down at me were three ten foot tall giants. Two men and a woman. The woman was glaring at me as if I'd done something to personally insult her. I gave her a look like, _What?_ and the glaring intensified. Then I heard a groan, and Amber stirred behind me.

"Aw, shniz . . . what the hell was that?" she muttered. Then she saw the giants. "Holy bejezzus! When did they get here?"

"Oh, about five seconds ago." I replied.

"And whoa, what is this?" Amber held up the bronze rod from before. All of the giant people instantly looked panicked. This confused me. I mean, how dangerous could a stick of metal be? I got my answer when the spiked ends began to spark. Immediately sensing was about to go wrong, I ducked. I wasn't disappointed. With a crackle and hiss, a bolt of lightning shot out of the end. _A bolt of lightning!_ I straightened up again and looked at the smoking hole in the throne room wall right behind where my head used to be. I blinked a few times and looked back at the three giants- wait, now there were only _two_ giants, and a normal sized man snatching the rod out of Amber's hands. And then I got my first good look at the guy. He had a black and gray beard and looked kinda old, but strong. He wore a blue pinstriped suit and looked rather angry when he took the rod away. Wait . . . That rod shoots _lightning,_ and incredibly powerful lightning at that. Could it be . . . ? And could that man be . . . ? But that wasn't possible. They couldn't be real . . . could they?

The other two giants had shrunk down to normal size and I looked at them more closely as well. The woman had chocolate brown hair braided down her back and was dressed in jeans and a t-shirt. I would have even mistaken her for the motherly type if she hadn't gone back to glaring at me. The other guy had an elfish face, was dressed like a mailman, and was eyeing Lady Glares-a-lot with a look of amusement. He held a big wooden stick with dove wings and two live snakes curled around it. Amber was pouting because the suit guy took her weapon of mass destruction away from her. And I don't know what it was, but suddenly I just couldn't take the silence anymore.

"Why the hell are you glaring at me! What did I do?" I screamed at the woman. The mail guy looked like he was trying really hard not to laugh. The suit guy looked vaguely impressed. And the lady . . . still looked mad at me. Shocker. Amber gasped.

"Hope you finally yelled at someone you didn't know! I'm so proud of you! Now all we have to do is go home and make fun of the 9th graders when we're seniors!" she said. Then she went up and hugged me, right in front of three strangers. Not that I was surprised. Then (finally) one of this strange trio spoke.

"What is your business? What do you seek?" Amber let go of me.

"We are _seeking_ a way home! Now can you get us there or not?" the suit guy, the one who had spoken before, raised his rather bushy eyebrows at her.

"You wish to go home?"

"No dip, Sherlock!" that was me.

"Hope! How disgraceful!" Amber wagged her finger at me.

"And this coming from you?"

"Enough! Do you wish to go home?"

"YES!" we yelled at the same time.

"FINE!" he roared, obviously at the end of his patience. At that, the throne room vanished in white light, and we once again teleported through time and space.


	4. Chapter 4

**And once again we switch the POV back to Amber, and we get to Camp Half-Blood!**

**Disclaimer: Do I really have to do this again? *sigh* Fine. I do not own Percy Jackson and the Olympians. They are the sole property of Rick Riordan and Hyperion Publishing. *turns to lawyers* Happy now?**

Chapter 4: We have a fangirl fit

After a man with a funny beard teleported me and Hope out of his shiny palace, I was feeling kinda queasy. In fact, when we appeared at a campfire in front of a bunch of kids, I threw up on some poor guy's s'more before I could stop myself. A shame, it looked really good, too. Now apparently, girls popping out of nowhere is not typical for this place, since everybody there was staring at us like we were, I don't know, Siamese twins or something. I apologized to the kid whose snack I barfed on, and went back to stand next to Hope.

A boy stepped out of the crowd. He was a couple years older than we were, with black hair and sea-green eyes. A part of my brain was jumping up and down, screaming at me to recognize him, but I ignored it. He and Hope were talking, but I wasn't listening. Instead I was looking at the people around us. A few of them stuck in mind. A blond girl. A pudgy man. A guy in a wheelchair. The part of my brain from before was shrieking now, running around in circles going,_ you know who they are, dumbass!_ But how could I know who they were? The only people I knew of that matched those descriptions were . . . whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute. That's crazy, even for me. It couldn't possibly be them . . . could it?

My train of thought was interrupted by Hope when she pulled out of the campfire area after the boy from before, along with the blond girl, the pudgy man, and the guy in the wheelchair. They led us to a big two-story house near some strawberry fields. Hold the phone . . . first a mountaintop, then thrones and teleporting, and now a campfire with people my brain is screaming at me to recognize, along with a big house and strawberry fields? I grabbed Hope to get her to stop moving.

"Hope," I whispered "I don't think we're in reality anymore."

"I know," she whispered back "This is familiar to me too. I think I know where we are. Do you know too?" I nodded. "Yeah. I thought you would. Part of me is still hoping that this is all a dream, and that any moment we'll wake up on the bus like nothing ever happened. But another part of me _knows_ that we aren't."

"Hey, you guys coming?" yelled a voice from the porch. The boy was there, waving at us impatiently. Wait, I didn't have to refer to him as "the boy" anymore. I knew who he was. Hope and I nodded, composed our faces, and followed Percy Jackson into the Big House of Camp Half-Blood.

"Do you know where you are?" Mr. D (a.k.a the pudgy man) asked us. I snorted.

"Of course we do." I replied. Hope shot me a panicked look before I continued, "We're in a house." Percy did a face palm when he thought I wasn't looking, and Chiron (a.k.a the guy in the wheelchair) took over.

"Ladies, what Mr. D meant was, do you know what this place is? Do you know what state you are in?" Hope jumped in before I could answer.

'No, we don't, could you please tell us?" she addressed all of them.

"You're in Camp Half-Blood," Annabeth (a.k.a. the blond girl) replied "Long Island, New York."

"Oh," Hope said, leaning back in her chair. "Well, that's a bit of a shock, considering we're from Maryland."

"Are you really still getting shocked, Hope? Weird stuff has been happening _all day._ Going to New York has been the _least_ shocking of our escapades." There were a lot of raised eyebrows at this, so we told the whole story, from the bus to the campfire. Percy smiled when we mentioned the Ophiotaurus and nearly cracked up laughing when I told him about the crumbling statue. Annabeth made sympathetic noises when Hope mentioned Hera (Oh. My. Gods. Hope _yelled _at the _Queen of Heaven!_ Talk about your social error) and grinned outright when Hope repeated what she had said. And _everybody_ looked freaked when I mentioned the hole I blew in Mount Olympus (How was _I_ supposed to know I grabbed the master bolt? Wait, don't answer that). We only left out one tiny detail: that we were actually from another universe in which this universe was a series of fiction novels meant for the entertainment of young adults. Not a very tiny detail, I know, but it's not like we could _tell _them that there's a whole 'nother world that thinks they're just products of Rick Riordan's imagination.

There was this whole orientation film after that, which I ignored. Hope was actually paying attention, which flabbergasted me. It was all, "monsters, blah blah blah, gods, blah blah blah, camp borders, blah blah, quests blah blah blah _blah._" What really stunk was that I already _knew _all that stuff, from reading the series. So it was just a whole bunch of blahs. Then I just heard,

"You'll have your tour in the morning" and Percy hauled us out to this really old, camp style cabin. I could only assume it was the Hermes cabin. We had two bedrolls on the floor, but when I stepped on mine, I felt something under the cloth. Reaching in I pulled out a lighter . . . and my iPod. Fully charged and with all my songs, thank the gods. Percy left us to get settled, and as soon as he was out of hearing range, Hope started shrieking in excitement. Then _I_ was shrieking in excitement. Then we were jumping up and down, hugging each other and squealing. You know, all that fan girl stuff. So yeah, we basically had a fan girl fit while nobody was around. Then the Hermes kids, our new cabin mates, got back and the head counselor called lights out. I crawled into my new bedroll and fell asleep.

**So that's the end of chapter 4. Now about the lighter and iPod . . . The lighter is going to cause a little trouble in the next chap *wink wink* and the iPod, well Amber (the real Amber) really wanted to have her iPod in here, so I obliged. Not sure what it's gonna do yet, though . . . Anyway, review!**


	5. Chapter 5

**I'm baa-aaaack! You guys miss me? I'm at home 'cuz I have a dentist appointment. Wish me luck! Anyway, I mentioned a little lighter-caused trouble in the last chap, so are ya ready?**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Percy Jackson. It'd be really cool if I did though . . . **

Chapter 5: Our tour goes terribly wrong

Our first morning at camp started out a little bit hectic. See, Amber forgot she left her iPod at the bottom of her sleeping bag, and when she couldn't find it, thought somebody stole it. Long story short, we had to apologize to a lot of Hermes kids when we set out for the camp tour.

Like Chiron told us, there was a senior camper waiting for us at the pavilion. She was pretty, with short black hair and a waaaaaayyy too sweet expression on her face. She also had on tons of that perfume that girls _think _makes them smell nice but really makes it seem like their wearing a couple gallons of hairspray. She introduced herself as Drew Something-or-other, the head counselor for the Aphrodite cabin. Really? Aphrodite? I never would have guessed _that_ on my own. Drew showed us the climbing wall, archery range, sword arena, weaponry (we had to drag Amber away from that), the canoe lake, and finally, the cabins. They were all unique and beautiful, just as I had imagined. Then we got to the Aphrodite cabin and everything started to go horribly wrong. Drew and Amber got into an argument (I still don't know what it was about), and Amber was waving her arms around holding her lit lighter. Then I smelled smoke.

"Curse you!" Drew screamed at Amber "Curse you, you set my bed on fire! Put it out!"

"What do you think I'm trying to do?" Amber yelled back, hopelessly trying to beat out the flames with her sleeve. That only got her jacket caught on fire. So now we had a flaming bed, a fiery jacket, a panicked Drew, and a pissed off Amber. Trying to put out the blaze, I grabbed a glass pot of what looked like water and threw the contents all around the room. Big mistake. There was a huge _WHOOM_ as an enormous mushroom cloud erupted out of the whole thing. Now _everything_ was on fire, and the creaking of the rafters above us could _not_ be a good thing.

As Amber very appropriately shrieked, "Abandon cabin!" we all scrambled out the door just in time to see the roof collapse. So when the breakfast crowd returned to get their stuff for the day's activities, they found me, Drew, and Amber staring blankly at the Aphrodite cabin's smoking ruins. Our faces were streaked with ash and sweat, there was soot in our hair, and our clothes smelled like smoke. Annabeth dragged Amber and me away before Drew could get over her shock and start yelling at us. We were shoved into the Hermes cabin a millisecond before Annabeth slammed the door. I guess she didn't want to deal with all the gawking Hermes kids. Once again, I decided to break the silence.

"So," I asked "How was breakfast?"

**Hmmm . . . I do believe our heroes have made an enemy. As you've probably guessed, this takes place between The Lost Hero and The Last Olympian. This chapter was kinda short, but future ones will be longer! Well that's all for this chap. So long!**


	6. Chapter 6

**Hi readers! In case you've forgotten, this is writergurl616, and before I start the chap Amber wants to say hi.**

**Amber: Hello peoples of Fanfiction and the Internet!**

**Me: That was Amber, who, as you've probably guessed, is the inspiration for the character of Amber in this fic. And also before I begin, Amber would you do the honors?**

**Amber: Writergurl does not own PJO. She just likes messing with the plot.**

Chapter 6: Claimed

They took my lighter away. Said me having it was too dangerous. I protested, saying that while _I_ may have started the fire, _Hope_ caused the explosion. But of course Chiron had to point out that there wouldn't have been an explosion if there wasn't a fire in the first place. So now I'm lighter-less. And all the Aphrodite kids were furious with me for getting their designer clothes (okay, so who the hell cares? They were probably from Hollister, anyway) burned. A few kids came up and clapped me on the back for freaking Drew out. (When she wasn't around, of course) Apparently she was the camp tyrant and resident b***h. So I got mixed reactions from all the campers. And don't think Hope was left out of this, either. One of the Eris kids actually gave her a _hug_ for blowing up the cabin. Apparently they were all still buzzing from the discord it caused. Who knew an explosion could make a group of kids so happy?

The rest of the first day at camp was pretty peaceful compared to our disastrous tour. I dueled at the sword arena for a while, then ditched everybody and started walking around, listening to my iPod and examining the scenery. _Wow, Rick Riordan was really accurate._ After that, the rest of the day was a blur. Hope and I had our first meal in the dining pavilion. The magic cups were awesome. I _have_ to figure out where they get those. Then came the campfire. It was a lot of fun at first: who doesn't love s'mores and goofy sing-alongs? But, like everything else in my life, the normalcy didn't last. Hope had gotten into a discussion with Annabeth about who our godly parents were, and Annabeth said,

"Okay, you guys don't exactly act like adults, but you definitely act different from the twelve year olds I've met. You and Amber are pretty mature for your age." Hope didn't respond. She just kind of stared at Annabeth with this blank look on her face, as if Annabeth had suddenly spoken another language or dropped from space. Then her comment registered to me as well, and _I_ had a blank look on my face.

"What," Hope said slowly "Are you talking about?" Now it was Annabeth's turn to look confused.

"You're twelve, aren't you? I mean, you haven't been claimed yet?" she asked

"We haven't been claimed yet," I said, "But we're not twelve."

"Well, then how old are you?"

"Fourteen." We replied at the same time.

"And you haven't been claimed?"

"No, we just _told_ you that." I answered.

"But the pact . . . the promise the gods made . . ." Annabeth looked like her mind was going a zillion miles an hour.

"What pact?" I asked, even though I knew exactly what she was talking about

"The gods made a pact earlier this year to claim all their children by the time they turned thirteen. You two should have been claimed by now. Have you guys ever seen a symbol appear over your head or your appearance change suddenly or anything like that? Maybe I'm worrying over nothing."

"No," I said "I don't remember anything like that happening . . . . " I trailed off because everyone was suddenly backing away like I had the plague. Then there was a thump and a clatter, as Hope toppled over next to me.

"Agh, who hit the lights?" she muttered while getting up, and I stared. Hope had somehow been put into a Greek dress, blindfold, and was holding a huge sword in one hand and a set of bronze scales in the other. She tugged up a corner of her blindfold to look at me, made a noise that sounded suspiciously like a squeak, and yanked it back down again. Which of course, made me wonder what exactly had happened to me? I looked down at myself, half-expecting to see a toga or something. I was wearing my regular clothes, but something seemed to be wrong with my skin. It was all shimmery, and I could see the bones in my hand. I could also see that my body was wreathed in an auric smoky black.

"Cool," I breathed, wiggling my bony fingers. Then it began to fade. "Awww." I said. Whatever had happened to Hope was going away too. Her blindfold vanished and the sword and scales dissolved into smoke. Chiron rose up to his full horsey height. His face was solemn as he spoke the ceremonial words.

"Nemesis and Hades" he said, "Justice and Death. Bringer of fortunes and master of souls. Hail Hope and Amber, daughters of the goddess of revenge and the lord of the dead."

**Remember, review! Or Amber will come find you . . . . **

**Amber: *evil grin***


	7. Chapter 7

**Wow, my first update of the New Year . . . Chapter 7, comin' at ya! Coming up next: we have our first monster fight and Amber has a Coach Hedge moment.**

**Disclaimer: Do I own the Statue of Liberty? *checks* Nope. Do I own Percy Jackson? *checks again* Still nope.**

Chapter7: When monsters attack

I woke up the next morning in the Nemesis cabin. It took me a minute to remember why I wasn't on the floor. _Oh yeah,_ I thought _I've been claimed._ I was still vaguely shell-shocked that my mom wasn't a school principal, but the goddess of revenge herself. Amber, of course, had been ecstatic to find out Hades was her father.

"My dad's not really my dad?" she had exclaimed "Yes!" As I lay back down on the pillow, I felt something poking into my scalp. Curious, I pulled a bronze clip out of my hair. It was nothing special, with a simple design and no ornamentation. But I like simplicity. Sometimes there's a fine line between decorating something and making it look ridiculous. I snapped the clip shut again, and it grew into a sleek, Celestial bronze dagger. It had a shining bronze blade and little grooves in the handle as a grip. Naturally I was surprised. Not only did my hair clip turn into a weapon, but I was certain that last night, I hadn't been _wearing_ a hair clip. So how did I get it? _Oh, duh._

"Thank you mother." I whispered. By now all my half-siblings were getting up and starting to get ready for the day. I turned my new dagger back into a hair ornament, dressed, and left the cabin. Amazingly enough, it was still pretty early. Apparently, being a demigod (unless you were a child of Hypnos or Morpheus) meant you got up when the sun was still rising. Amber was not going to be happy about her new "early riser" status. Speaking of Amber, she ran up to me in a panic while I was watching the sun. She was talking so fast it sounded like gibberish and gesturing wildly at her neck. "Amber, Amber," I soothed. "Calm down. Now tell me what you're upset about- _slowly_." It took her a minute, but Amber finally got herself to speak at an understandable speed.

"Look at this!" she shouted, pointing at her neck again. Looking at it, I saw that there was a necklace on it. A black ribbon choker with a charm that looked like a pointed cross. On closer inspection, I saw that it wasn't a pointed cross, but a sword.

"The necklace?" I asked. Amber nodded like a bobble head. "It's . . . nice?" I tried. Wrong answer.

"Nice? _Nice? _A random piece of jewelry appears on my neck and all you can say is that it's _nice_?"

"I'm . . . sorry?" I replied "Wait, what exactly are you upset about?" Amber huffed at me, and answered as though it should have been obvious.

"This necklace," she said, gesturing at it again, "Was not on me when I went to bed last night. Then I wake up and it's there on my neck! How the fudge did it get there?" I shrugged. Then inspiration hit me.

"Maybe it's a gift from Hades! Like my hair clip!" I exclaimed, pulling said clip out of my hair as I did so. Amber looked confused.

"Your hair clip is a gift from Hades?" she asked.

"No, it's a gift from Nemesis. I woke up with it this morning."

"What makes you think it's a gift from Nemesis?" I grinned and brought out the dagger. Amber's eyes were the size of golf balls.

"Cool! I wonder what mine does!" she cried, pulling on what was sure to be a weapon in hiding. To my surprise, the charm, which appeared to be firmly attached, came off. Then the mini iron sword grew into a full size iron sword. It was pretty cool, sharp black blade and a curved hilt. The handle was wrapped in leather and topped with a skull. Amber was on the verge of geeking out, bouncing on the balls of her feet and making little _squee _noises. Then of course she had to run into the woods to try it out.

"Oh, crap." I said, suddenly realizing the gravity of the situation. For all you mathematically challenged folks, Amber + sword = absolute chaos. "Amber! Amber come back here!" I yelled, taking off into the woods. It wasn't long before I got lost. Apparently reading about the woods didn't give me magical knowledge of how to navigate them. Just when I was on the verge of giving up, I heard someone yelling.

"Holy bejezzus! What the Hades are you doing here? This isn't supposed to happen! Holy shnizzit!" Then Amber barreled into me, looking as terrified as I'd ever seen her. Before I could ask why, however, she began towing me by the arm through all the shrubbery. When we were safely hidden in a bush, Amber started rapid-fire babbling again. Most of it was intelligible but I managed to catch the words 'practice', 'monsters', and 'scared'. Once again I tried to ask what was going on, but Amber shushed me.

"Here they come." She whispered.

"Here who come?" I asked, but she shushed me again. "You know what, this is ridiculous. I'm going back to camp. You're free to join me when your mystery monsters are vanquished." I stood up . . . and came face-to-face with an enormous black muzzle. Then I got the most vigorous face-licking I have ever received. Then the hellhound gave a happy _woof,_ and I recognized her as Mrs. O'Leary. "Really, Amber?" I giggled, "This is your terrifying monster?" I gestured behind me at the world's friendliest hellhound. Said hound decided she wanted to see who I was talking to up close and personal. So she sank her teeth into Amber's shirt collar and dragged her out of the foliage. Amber glared at me when I laughed at this stunt, but I couldn't help it. From my angle, it looked pretty funny. When she untangled herself from Mrs. O'Leary, (who was sniffing curiously at her jeans), Amber stood up, trying to maintain at least _some _of her dignity.

"Of course I wasn't talking about Mrs. O'Leary. I said 'here _they_ come', not 'here _she_ comes'. And weren't you listening when I was talking earlier? I was talking about monster_s_. As in plural, more than one."

"Well then, what exactly _were_ you talking about?" I asked. Amber was spared from having to answer me, however, when I heard a hissing voice I had read about all too many times. (Let me tell you, it's a lot scarier in person)

"Godlingssssss, sssssssurrender now and we may sssssspare your livesssss."

"Amber?" I asked in a voice I was sure I would deny ever using.

"Yeah?" Ditto for Amber.

"There's something bad behind me, isn't there?"

"Uh huh." I slowly turned around and came face to face with a dracanae. She hissed in my face and out of sheer idiocy I said the first thing that popped into my head.

"Ugh, do you guys ever brush your teeth? I mean, seriously, what have you been eating?" Because seriously, her breath stank. Really bad. So of course she had to take out her sword and try to slice me like sandwich bread. I'd been frantically dodging for like, five minutes before I remembered I had my own weapon. Amber had been quicker to arm herself than I, and was currently charging at more monsters (now there were about twenty – where did they all come from?), swinging her sword and screaming "DIE!" I fought the dracanae. You can imagine how that went. She slashed, and I ducked. I stabbed, and she blocked. Then I tripped over a tree root (curse my suddenly-presenting-itself lack of coordination)and the dracanae had the opening she was looking for. She swung her sword in a deadly arc that would have split my skull in two if my ADHD battle reflexes had been any slower. Instead of coming down on my head, the dracanae's sword came down on the flat of my dagger blade, supported by my palms, but the sheer force of the blow forced me down to one knee. My idea formed when I caught sight of my adversary's legs. They were snake trunks, like with all dracanae, more lithe and flexible than human legs, but slicker, without as much traction. _Okay,_ I thought, _time to play dirty._ I abandoned my guard, causing the monster to pitch forward, and dove at her legs. I sat on her back to keep her from getting up and striking again. Then I stabbed my dagger through a chink in her armor and she disintegrated.

Mrs. O'Leary was making short work of the other invaders, tossing them into the air like rag dolls. Amber wasn't doing too bad herself. Then a horrible thought occurred to me as I stood there in the forest that had become a battlefield.

"Amber!" I yelled to my friend.

"What?" she shouted back while blocking a hellhound.

"We have to get back to camp!"

"Uh, I don't know if you've _noticed_, Hope, but I'm a little busy here!" Annoyed, I dispatched the demon dog and turned back to my bud,

"Amber, if monsters are attacking here, then what do you think that means?"

"That the camp borders are on the fritz?"

"No! Well, that too, but that's not what I'm talking about. What I meant was if there are monsters here, then that means there are probably _more_ attacking the camp! We have to go help!"

"I thought we _were_ helping!" Amber shouted.

"Yeah, but we'll help _more_ at camp! Now let's go!" I started running in what I thought was the general direction of camp until Amber's voice stopped me.

"Wait! Why don't we just take Mrs. O'Leary?" I did a mental facepalm.

"Right," I said, and hopped onto Mrs. O'Leary's back. Amber sat in front. I didn't argue. Being a daughter of Hades, hellhounds were kind of Amber's thing.

"Alright girl," Amber commanded "take us to camp."

And with that, we were off.

**And there is Chapter 7. Looking at how long this was when I typed it, I'm kinda scared how long it's gonna be when I get to Chapter 10 . . . See on paper, I am several chapters ahead of myself in this story. I was gonna post this chapter during the weekend, but then I got caught up watching Storm Hawks. Anyway, what will we find when our heroes get to camp? Well, you'll just have to wait and find out! Remember, review! (Amber was right- that does drive me to write more!)**


	8. Chapter 8

**Ello readers! I got off my lazy butt and finally updated! Not much commenting on this chapter, except that the plot is starting to heat up. Soon the purpose of the quest will be revealed. Oooooooo . . . . .**

**Disclaimer: I don't even have a Facebook (Not that I want one. Something about it is . . . yuck. Just yuck.), how could I own Percy Jackson and the Olympians? **

Chapter 8**: **Um, what?

So me and Hope were rushing back to Camp Half-Blood on Mrs. O'Leary after kicking some serious monster butt. When we arrived, we expected everyone to be fighting. We expected there to be carnage. We expected people to be yelling. What we actually found was even more surprising. It was . . . normal. What? Did we miss something? I mean, seriously, there weren't even any signs of a fight. Everyone was going about their normal activities. The Hephaestus kids were working in the forge, the satyrs were playing volleyball in the sand pit . . . what the fudge? I turned around to see if Hope was as confused as I was. She was. Curious, we both hopped off of Mrs. O'Leary and made an instant beeline for the Big House, where Mr. D and Chiron were playing pinochle on the porch. I think they were pretty surprised to see us run up covered in monster dust and toting our new accessories of doom. And before either of them could ask for an explanation, however, Hope jumped in with,

"Why are there snake ladies in the woods?" Chiron raised a teacherly eyebrow. Mr. D just sat there looking bored. You know, there are times when I _really_ do not like that guy's attitude. Since neither of them looked like they were about to provide an answer, Hope went on, "We were just attacked by hellhounds and dracanae in the woods. Were they stocked there for as training exercise or something?" Chiron shook his head.

"Not that I've arranged." He then turned to our camp director. "Mr. D, do you know of anything like this?"

"Right, ask him, because he cares about this camp sooo much." Hope said sarcastically

"Yeah seriously, why are you asking him?" I inquired, joining in the conversation. It had been fun to watch the conversation like a tennis match for a while, but unless I was doing something that needed total concentration I couldn't stay quiet for long. "I know he's a god, but he's a _wine god_. How's that going to help us?" Then said wine god decided he was going to join in as well.

"Being a god," he shot me a pointed look "means that I know things _you_ do not no matter _what_ kind of god I am. For example, I know that with the trouble you two stirred up on Olympus, Zeus is already wary of you and Hera is thoroughly irritated with your loudmouthed friend."Dionysus shot me a smug look over I pondered over what he said. I knew Hope was sarcastic, and sometimes blurted out stuff she shouldn't have, but nobody had ever called her _loudmouthed_ before. Actually, before we came here she was usually pretty quiet. Hmm. Maybe we'll both be a little different by the end of this crazy adventure.

"Uh, no offense Mr. D, but I don't think you need to be a god to know that stuff. I used the master bolt to blow a hole in the side of the Olympus throne room, and Hope sat on Hera's throne and yelled in her face. If I were Zeus and Hera I'd be wary and irritated too. To be honest, I'm surprised they didn't zap us into next week." Heh. That kinda stole his thunder, didn't it? Hope smirked to herself while Dionysus glared at me. Damn. I have to work on keeping my mouth shut. I prayed to the gods (well, the ones I haven't managed to tick off or annoy yet) that turning into a sort of detestable creature was a form of 'harm' and therefore Mr. D wasn't allowed to do it to me. Then the yelling started.

"Battle positions!"

"Apollo, to me!"

"Heroes, brace yourselves!" So there _was_ going to be an attack. We just got here early. Not early enough to you know, _warn _everybody, but what can yah do?

"Well, I'd love to continue this chat, but apparently duty calls." I said, and raised my night-black sword. "Hades!" I cried, and charged, adrenaline singing in my veins, towards the battlefield this camp- _my_ camp had become. Admittedly, I hadn't had a lot of practice with my sword, and was more than a little clumsy with it, but I did alright. Percy of course, was kicking butt with Riptide and his invincible Achilles mojo. I spotted Hope racing around the campground stabbing enemies and doing her best not to get sliced into ribbons. Over in another part of camp, I spotted Drew telling one monster that he shouldn't be attacking her, he should really be tearing apart the other invaders. Don't ask me how that went, because I don't know. But she lived, so I guess it wasn't too much of a disaster. Then I saw something that flipped my reality-displaced world upside down.

Percy Jackson had charged a dracanae, but instead of trying run him through or something similar, she ducked under his sword, seized him by the head, and covered his nose and mouth with an odd looking cloth. I have no idea what that rag was soaked in, but a moment later Percy's eyes closed and he crumpled to the ground. Then the dracanae that had assaulted him in the first place picked him up, slung him over her shoulder, and started to race back into the woods. Now I know what you guys are thinking: _Percy Jackson, Hero of Olympus, is being __**kidnapped **__**right in front **__**of this girl**__ and she's not doing a single fudging thing?_ The answer would be yes. But you have to add in the shock factor here. And Percy's the hero of frigging Olympus; he should be able to take care of himself. And there was also the little matter of the hellhound that leaped onto my back. It snuck up on me while I was musing about Percy and pinned me to the grass. So I was laying there, with that thing breathing its hot stinky breath down my neck and I was wondering why it didn't just make me dog food already when a voice with a French accent said

"Leave her! We have all the ones we need! Now quickly, to the Hunters for our next prize!" Suddenly, miraculously, the weight on my back lifted, and I looked up to see the creations of Tartarus leaving camp Half-Blood. A cheer went up among the demigods. We had won. _Or did we?_ My inner pessimist whispered. _Oh shut up,_ I told her,_ they're leaving, aren't they? Yeah, but for what reason?_ Pessimist-Me replied smugly._ Because you drove them off or because they got what they came for? _That (unfortunately) reminded me of the whole Percy thing. _Aw crap,_ I thought, _Annabeth's gonna kill me. _But as I looked around, I didn't see her. And now that I thought about it, I didn't see Drew, Clarisse, Pollux, Will Solace, Connor Stoll, Katie Gardner, or Jake Mason. Okay, so why the fudge were all the head counselors AWOL? I got a sick feeling in my stomach as I realized something else: I didn't see Hope either. The sick feeling only worse when French Accent's words came back to me: _"We have all the ones we need."_ What if Hope and the others had been kidnapped, like Percy? Whoever this French Accent guy is, he better not think that he can march into _my _camp and take _my_ best friend, because he'd be wrong. Dead wrong.

"Mr. D!" a nasal sounding voice broke into my thoughts. "Mr. D, something's happened to Pollux!" I wanted to yell_ who cares about Pollux; I don't know where my best friend is!_ So you can imagine my surprise when it was none other than said friend was the one stumbling up to our camp director. Hope's voice had sounded funny because she was pinching a bloody nose. One of the lenses in her glasses was cracked, and there was a bruise blooming on her cheek. Overall, it looked like someone had smacked her in the face. Hard. Hope's shouting and messed up face had caught the attention of many of the demigods, and with the mention of Pollux, Mr. D's attention as well. As one of the Apollo kids started working on her bloody nose, Mr. D demanded for hope to tell him what happened to son. And she complied.

"Okay, so here's what happened . . . ."

**Aaah! *author almost falls of edge of cliffhanger* Yeah, you guys are probably gonna hate me for this. Don't worry, Percy WILL be rescued! Not anytime soon, but he will be saved. It's not like I'd kill him off or anything . . . *looks around suspisciously, then dives under desk as angry mob appears* I'm kidding! I'M KIDDING! I SWEAR! That was way too close! Anywho, reviews are loved! You don't need an account to review! (I remember thinking I had to wait until I was a member in order to review, then when I DID become a member I found out regular people could review too. I felt like a total idiot.)**


	9. Chapter 9

**I have retur-ned! I managed to convince the mob that I do not in fact intend to kill off Percy Jackson so they left me alone. I also apologize for not being a more regular updater, but I'm trying the best I can. Anyway, I'm going to start replying to my reviews at the bottom of the page so read my Author's Note!**

**Disclaimer: I don't think anybody on this site owns what they're writing about. Why should I be an exception?**

Chapter 9: The Problem

After Amber went charging off to slay the invading monsters, it took all of two seconds for me to decide to follow her. So I descended into the campground, dodging weapons and shoved my dagger in between chinks of armor. And after a little while, I noticed something strange. None of the monsters seemed to really be trying. I mean, they defended themselves and didn't get killed, sure, but when they attacked . . . it was almost like they were trying to make the fight last as long as possible. I put the observation in the back of my mind when I saw four monsters making an attempt to corner Pollux by the lake. I raced over and stabbed two from behind before they had a chance to react. But as I turned to face the third-BAM! She slammed her very hard shield into my unprotected face. My nose made a disgusting _crunch _noise, my glasses cracked, and I fell back onto the sand. When I tried to get up, she smacked me with her shield again, this time in the back of the head. Through increasingly fuzzy vision, I saw one dracanae holding Pollux down while the other smothered his face with a chemical-soaked rag. The last thought I had before passing out was _Dionysus is going to murder me._ Then, nothing.

"So then I woke up and came straight to you" I finished, looking around at my audience, which included most of the camp, Chiron, Amber, and Mr. D. A kid from the Hephaestus cabin handed me back my fixed glasses, and I got a good look at the faces of the people around me. Mr. D looked like he was caught between worry and anger (worry for his son and anger at me for letting it happen), Chiron looked somber, and Amber looked like she was bursting to say something but wasn't sure what would happen if she did. Everybody else's expressions ranged from shock to skepticism.

"So what you're saying is, Pollux was kidnapped?" Travis Stoll asked.

"Well no dip, Sherlock!" I said.

"And he's not the only one." Amber added. _Huh?_ I turned to look at her, and she continued,"I saw Percy getting knocked out and taken away, and I'm pretty sure it happened to some others as well."

"Others? Like who?" I asked, probably echoing the entire camp's thoughts as I did so.

"Well . . . Annabeth for one. Don't you think she'd be freaking out right now about her boyfriend being missing? Do you even see her?" I looked around, and she was right. The camp seemed to be minus one Annabeth Chase. At this revelation, Chiron immediately called a head count. Wouldn't you? With three campers missing and two of them confirmed kidnappings; I was really hoping nobody else was gone. No such luck. As it turned out, every head counselor from the original cabins was missing. Crap. This certainly wasn't looking good. Nine of our best fighters, gone. Poof. How did we not notice that?

"Okay, so here's what we know: a child of each Olympian god, excluding Zeus, Hera, and Artemis, has been kidnapped. We don't know why, where the captors are taking them or if this is going to continue. Does anyone have anything to add?" Malcolm finished. In Annabeth's absence, he was the new (temporary) head counselor for Athena. Another inconvenience with suddenly having most of our senior campers disappear was that we had to appoint all these new temporary cabin heads until we got everybody back.

"I have something to add." Everybody turned to look at Amber. "When I was pinned by that monster dog, I heard a guy in a French accent say they were going to the Hunters."

"Are you sure that's what he meant?" Malcolm asked.

"Hmmm, well he said 'To the Hunters for our next prize', what do you think?" Amber replied, imitating the guy she had heard in a terrible French accent. Everybody continued to stare at her, and she fidgeted uncomfortably. "What?" she asked, after a minute or two of silence.

"Do you have anything else to add?" Malcolm inquired.

"No! I would have _added_ it already!" Amber hotly retorted.

"_Okay_, so we should Iris-message the Hunters ASAP." I interjected, trying to split the tension that had suddenly sprung up between Amber and the son of Athena. "They need to know that this French Accent Guy is after someone in their ranks." Chiron nodded, and herded Mr. D to the Big House, presumably to contact the Hunters of Artemis.

"But we still don't know why demigods are being kidnapped or where they are being held." Malcolm stated. No dip, Sherlock. "Did anyone else hear anything?" Everyone shook their heads. "Well, okay then. Meeting adjourned." I rolled my eyes at the lame wrap-up, and I saw a few others do that, too. After that, the crowd just dispersed. To train, draw up battle plans, I dunno. Amber went towards her cabin, and I followed. I'd never seen the inside of the Hades cabin before, and I was curious.

I'd seen the outside of it, sure. Obsidian walls, skull over the doorway, torches burning with green fire 24/7. Sounds like a real cheery place. But appearances can be deceiving. I figured on the inside the cabin would look much more cheerful. I was wrong. The beds weren't even beds. They were caskets. Isn't that a vampire thing? Amber, apparently, had started to personalize hers by painting on the lid. That would be what I gathered from the red paint and stencils sitting beside her bunk. There was also a sculpture of a willow tree in the center of the room. It looked like glass, but when I touched the tree, it was freezing cold. _Stygian ice,_ I thought, _cool._ Amber was on the other side of the trunk with her headphones in and I guess she hadn't noticed me yet because she started to dance, humming slightly off-key and tossing her head back and forth. I felt really awkward just standing there watching this display, so I was relieved when the conch horn sounded, though that probably meant another camp-wide meeting and more bad news.

"Amber," I said to my friend, "Chiron's calling a meeting. We gotta go." She didn't respond. "Amber," I repeated, tapping her shoulder. Nothing. "Amber." I repeated, tapping harder. Nada. "AM-BER!" I finally yelled, and shook her by the shoulders. As expected, she shrieked and jumped about a foot in the air.

"What?" she shouted.

"Chiron's calling everybody. Everybody includes you. Now let's go." I replied, pulling my friend out by the arm. The campers had already gathered in the commons, with some dryads and satyrs still coming in. I spotted none other than Grover Underwood, with a dryad who I could only assume was his girlfriend Juniper. Grover looked pale and stressed, and I didn't blame him. I doubted I would look all that great if my two best friends had disappeared on me. Then as per usual, my brain wandered off on a tangent, and I wondered how Tyson would take all of this. Had anybody even told him? Maybe they were hoping we'd rescue Percy before he found out. I sure hoped so. If Tyson had found out someone had kidnapped his beloved big brother, he'd either cry hard enough to overflow the Pacific or go into a Kill-All-Monsters berserker mode. While I was busy being ADD and thinking about all this, Chiron was making a speech. But I wasn't too lost in thought not to hear that last, ominous sentence.

"The prophecy has begun."

**Dun dun duuuuunnn! So, anyway, reviews:**

**Maggie the Unicorn: Thanks a lot, your advice has definitely helped me out. Hopefully I can continue to improve.**

**Alexandriarulzforeva: Thanks, I'm really glad you like it. And don't worry; the next chapter WILL be longer than this one. Yes, blowing a hole in Olympus can be fun, but Zeus'll get ticked at ya afterwards. **

**Amber: You know I find it ironic that you are the one to push me to update the most and yet you know more about the story than everyone else who reads this.**


	10. Chapter 10

**Alright, here is chapter 10, longer than the others just like I said. The plot continues to gain momentum, and the prophecy is revealed! . . . I'll just shut up and get to the story now.**

**Disclaimer: How many times do I have to say this? Me no ownie. No make money. 'Kay?**

Chapter 10: Secrets revealed

Prophecy? What the fudge? Didn't these guys just _finish _a prophecy? Apparently the other campers felt the same way as I did, because there was a lot of uneasy muttering.

"Prophecy?" someone asked "Like the Great Prophecy?"

"No," Chiron replied, suddenly looking way older than he did a few minutes ago. 'The Great Prophecy will not happen for a time. The prophecy I am referring to is one spoken by the old oracle. The last she ever uttered." So now we had a creep factor. Great. A mummified fortune teller issuing a most likely gloom-and-doom prophecy just weeks, possibly days or even hours before crumbling to dust. Fantastic. It was getting kinda late, so of course we _had_ to be sent to bed after that. How anti-climactic. Now I was going to have to wait _all night_ before I knew what the heck Chiron was talking about. Or so I thought.

Now I would be a liar if I said that I have never had a weird dream. For instance, I dreamed once that there was a serial killer in my school, and another time I dreamed that mine and Hope's bus driver had demonic powers (wouldn't surprise me). But never before have I dreamed about future-telling dead hippies who breathe smoke and to be honest, kinda smell. I suppose I should explain that. In my dream, I was standing in the attic of the Big House, looking at all the cool trophies. After looking at the stuffed hydra head I turned back around to look at something else. And almost jumped out of my skin. Sitting there on a three-legged stool that I could have sworn was empty a second ago, was a mummified woman. She was wearing a tie-dyed dress, like a hippy, had black hair, and lots of beaded necklaces. Now, unfortunately, this mummy was not, repeat _not _wrapped in bandages. I'm talking full scale withered corpse here. I think you all know who I'm talking about by now. I knew who it was, but that didn't make it any less confusing. The old oracle was supposed to be dead. She fell apart after the end of the Second Titan War. Maybe it was some kind of illusion. I crept up to the oracle, and, just to make sure she was real, poked her. Not my best idea. The old oracle's half-lidded eyes snapped wide open, glowing like eerie white marbles in the darkness. Her jaw creaked lower and green smoke began to billow out of her mouth. I jumped back and let out a squeak of fright.

"Sorry!" I yelped, "Sorry, sorry, did I hurt you? I apologize so please, stop spewing your green smoke of death at me." As you can imagine, that didn't really help much. The grass-colored smokescreen continued until the only things I could see were the oracle and myself. Needless to say, it was pretty creepy. Just when I was on the verge of a nervous breakdown wondering what the heck was about to happen, she began to speak, her raspy voice slithering through the room like a snake:

_"There will be two travelers, from this world they are not,_

_Appearing after the Second War is fought._

_Save the lost godlings, they must save them all,_

_Lest the borders of mortal and immortal dissolve._

_They must cease the revealing of the truth to all mortal thought,_

_Or the war on the Time Lord will have been for naught."_

As she spoke, shapes formed in the emerald smog. Two girl's silhouettes (I gulped as I figured who they were). The faces of the missing campers. Kronos's scythe. Real cheery stuff. _Well, this week is turning out to be great, _I thought, _First my school partially blows up, then I get zapped out of my own dimension, then one of my favorite book characters of all time is captured right before my eyes, and now I'm getting rhyming advice from a dead hippie. Yeah. Awesome. _After that, everything faded to black, and I woke up in my cabin with a sword in my face.

"Wha-huh?" I mumbled, squeezing my eyes shut against sudden light.

"Who are you and what are you doing here?" An angry sounding voice demanded.

"I'm Amber and I live here."

"Why?"

"This is where all the children of Hades go isn't it?"

"Uhh . . . yeah." I could hear the surprise in his voice. "You're a child of Hades?"

"Yup. That would be why I'm here."

"Oh. Sorry about that. You can open your eyes now." I did, and found myself staring at a boy close to my age. He had olive skin, silky black hair, and a Stygian iron sword like mine. I knew who this was. _Nico DiAngelo . . . NICO DIANGELO! _My inner fangirl had awoken. _Shut up, _I told her, _he's my half-brother, after all. This is no time for your romantic fantasies._ It was with the mention of fantasies that I remembered my dream.

"Ohmygods, I have to go talk to my friend. Nice meeting you Nico!" I tossed over my shoulder as I headed towards the cabin door.

"What do you have to – hey, wait a minute, how do you know my name?" I froze in the doorway, looking at Nico's suspicious face.

"Uh-well-um-uuuuhhh . . ." I started. At first absolutely nothing came to me. Then I blurted "No one sees the wizard!" and raced out the door.

"What? How did a _wizard _get into this? Hey, come back here!" Nico shouted.

"No!" I so cleverly shouted back. As I was leaving I noticed I had noticed that I had woken up from my dream in the middle of the night. This meant everyone, including Hope, was probably still asleep. Even so, I barely gave a second thought to racing across the campground and charging into the Nemesis cabin. This rudely awakened every kid in there. Okay, so there were three of them, but still. One blinked sleepily at me, and then started fumbling for his glasses. The other two started to grab their weapons, and also fumbled for _their _glasses so they could use said weapons properly (Hope's got glasses, too. Hmm . . . is that a thing with children of Nemesis?).

"Whoa, no need for fighting, I come in peace." I said, hands raised, "I just need to talk to Hope."

"At two o'clock in the morning?" One girl asked indignantly. The others kids groaned.

"_Yes_, at two in the morning. Now which bunk's hers?"

"This one." She replied. I checked the upper bunk bed. It was empty. Hope's half-sister had looked too, and she seemed puzzled. "Huh. I guess she left. Weird."

"Where did she go?" I asked.

"Not sure the beach maybe. She seems to like looking at the waves. Come back and get me if you can't find her there."

"Okay, thanks, uh . . ." Crap, I didn't know her name.

"Mia."

"Thanks Mia." As I left the cabin the other campers were laying back down to return to sleep, mumbling about how psychotic I was. Like Mia had told me, I found Hope sitting on a sand dune watching the motion of the waves. The sky was clear and a gentle breeze was blowing. Such a scene of peace. Too bad I was going to disturb it. I sucked in a deep breath and yelled "HOPE!" at the top of my lungs. That managed to startle my friend out of whatever the heck she was doing, and do a spontaneous log roll into the lower sand. I had myself a good laugh, then went over to make sure she didn't break her neck or anything. Hope was fine, but really ticked off.

"Really, Amber?" she hissed, _"Really?"_ After having been friends with her for a while, I was immune to Hope's evil stares, so I casually replied;

"Yeah, really. Now get up, I have to tell you about this dream I had." The word _dream _caught her attention, and Hope pulled herself upright, her expression a mix of curiosity and apprehension.

"Dream? What about?" she asked. I told the whole story, from seeing the oracle, to the issuing of the prophecy, to waking up in my cabin and coming straight to her. By the time I finished, even her freckles were pale. This concerned me. I knew what happened in my dream was freaky and all, but Hope didn't scare _that_ easily. She had me for a friend after all.

"Hope?" I asked, "What's wrong?" That expression was seriously starting to scare me.

"That's . . ." she replied slowly, "That's exactly what happened in _my_ dream" Whoa, wait a minute, Hope had a dream too? "The oracle, the prophecy, the smoke, everything. This is so creepy." I had to agree. The two of us having the exact same dream about the oracle _and_ a prophecy on the same night was such a Percy Jackson moment it wasn't even funny. Well I guess if you were somebody else it would be funny. After confirmed that the details between her dream and mine were the same, we sat back and discussed it.

"So, I think it's pretty obvious that we are the two travelers that the oracle was talking about, and the bit about the lost godlings must be referring to the kidnapped demigods."

"Well, yeah, I figured that out, Hope, but I kinda hoping to figure out what the lines about borders and wars and mortals and not mean? Like, if we don't complete the prophecy, we'll get sent back to before the Titan War?" I asked. Hope shook her head.

"No Amber, we won't get sent back. Remember, the prophecy said _naught_, not _not._"

"There's a difference?" Hope sighed.

"_Yes_, Amber there is a difference between _not, _n-o-t, and _naught, _n-a-u-g-h-t. _Not, _n-o-t, means that it did not or would not happen. _Naught, _n-a-u-g-h-t, means for nothing. If we don't complete the prophecy, then the Second Titan War will have been for nothing." To this I had one thing to say and one thing only;

"Aw crap."

We continued to sit on the beach for some time after that, because Hope had convinced me that if we went barging in at three o'clock in the morning, Mr. D was more likely to turn us into hamsters than he was to listen. But I could only wait for so long. So promptly at five forty-five we began knocking on the door of the Big House. Said door was answered by a grumpy-looking Dionysus wearing a tiger-print bathrobe. _Just _a bathrobe. It took me _weeks _to get that image outta my head. Luckily, once we explained why we were there, he let us in with less grumbling and no transformations. Then Chiron came out in a nightcap and we began our story. By the time we were finished, it was daylight and the campers were beginning to rise for the day.

"Alright, girls," Chiron asked calmly "When you were telling us the story of how you came to be here, is there anything about your home that you neglected to tell us?" Okay, I'll admit it. I panicked.

"Hope, they're onto us! RUUUUUNNN!" I screamed, and bolted out the door. I was halfway across camp before I realized she wasn't following me. I also realized that people must have been staring. After all, I was running across the campground like a crazy woman in my sand-encrusted pajamas. Doing a 180, I raced back to the  
Big House where Hope was still sitting with Chiron and Mr. D, looking uncomfortable and mildly embarrassed. Not wanting to go in any further, I called her from the doorway; "Come on, Hope, come on!" I shouted, gesturing towards Half-Blood Hill. But nothing happened. Hope just sat there staring at me, now looking absolutely bewildered. Starting to lose my patience I darted inside and started pulling on her arm. "Hope, hurry! Little Susie's stuck in a well! Now come on, girl! Come on!" Hope abruptly stood up, causing me to lose my balance and stumble back a few steps.

"Okay, a) there is no one at this camp named Little Susie, b) we don't have a well, and c) I AM NOT LASSIE!"

"I wish you were! Then you would _follow_ me! Now come on," I started pulling on her arm again, "let's get outta here before we're dissected!"

"Amber, why would they dissect us?" Hope asked tiredly.

"We're not from this world! We are _aliens!_ And aliens always, _always _get dissected!" I was getting frustrated, and so was Hope;

"Amber, we're _not _aliens, aliens are from another planet. We're from Earth, remember?" At this point we were both shouting at each other.

"Yeah, but we're not from _this _Earth! Our Earth's in another dimension for crying out loud! That pretty much means alien in my book!" I cried.

"But maybe not in theirs!" Hope shot back, "Besides, what do you think they're going to do? Turn us over to the government? Send us to Area 51? I don't know if you've noticed Amber, but these guys have some pretty big secrets of their own! Satyrs, nymphs, pegasi, children who are half freaking _god! _The biologists and historians alone would be having a field day!"

"Yeah, but you're forgetting one important detail, and that is the _Mist _would _keep _them from _finding _that stuff in the first place!" I shouted in return. Then our argument abruptly ceased as we paled in unison, coming to the same conclusion at the same time. Hope took in a deep breath . . and let out a very loud, very long string of nasty curse words in Ancient Greek. Then she continued to swear in Greek about how we should have figured it out, it was so obvious, yadda yadda yadda. After watching our heated argument, sudden halt of said argument, and Hope swearing a blue streak, Mr. D and Chiron sat there looking rather lost. It took a couple minutes to calm Hope down (the girl's hard to stop once she gets going), and then we explained to the heads of our camp our conclusion. And by that, I mean we figured out one of the lines of the prophecy. _Lest the borders of mortal and immortal dissolve. _If Hope and I didn't succeed, the Mist would be destroyed. The mortal world would know of us. They would hunt us, and we would have nowhere to hide.

**Phew! I gotta give those authors who regularly write chapters this long props. It's **_**hard**_**! At least for my ADD brain it's hard. I really do apologize for being a lazy-butt, and I hope this nine page chapter makes up for it. (And if you think the whole not vs. naught thing is confusing . . . try reading it out loud. XD Amber got tongue-tied sooo many times)**

**Amber: As you can see, I have updated. I hope you're happy.**


	11. Chapter 11

**Hey everybody! Quick question-why is Amber the only one reviewing for the past few chapters? Don't get me wrong, Amber, I love your support, I'm just wondering why the rest of these guys have become silent. So . . . yeah. Review please?**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Percy Jackson. If I did this would be published and sold, not on the Internet.**

Chapter 11: Preparation

At midday. That was when Chiron said we would leave. At midday. That left us a few hours at most to prepare for our little trip. And by 'trip' I mean harrowing quest to prevent our world as we know it being revealed to the mortal world as they know it, likely causing all of us to be hunted down like animals and experimented on and feared and hated even though all we've done is save their butts. But you know, no pressure. Good gods, I haven't even _started _this quest and I'm already freaking out about it. _Oy. _Now I know how Percy probably feels sixty five percent of the time. As I was thinking all this I was shoving supplies into a backpack. Change of clothes, hairbrush, nectar and ambrosia . . . one of my siblings tried to give a sword, but I told him;

"S'alright I'm good." It was only _after _he began to stare at me as if I had suddenly grown a second head did I realize that I hadn't really told anybody about my dagger. His eyes were practically the size of quarters when I brought it out to show him. And it was then I noticed the small Greek letters inscribed into the blade. It was a name.

"Dikaios." I murmured. Justice. How fitting. In the process of this quest to save my fellow half-bloods, I was definitely going to be doling out some serious retribution in the form of butt-kicking. Hope those monsters haven't forgotten what Tartarus is like. I just can't figure out what they would want with the Hunters of Artemis. It must be something big, because a bunch of immortal maidens with wolves and kick-ass archery skills are not people you mess with on a whim. So this French Accent must have a serious reason. Okay. Look at the information you have. Organize it, and come to a conclusion. _Gods, I sound like an Athena kid. No, focus! Stupid ADHD. Okay, so here's what I know: a child of each Olympian god, excluding Zeus, Hera, and Artemis, has been taken from camp. The only reason we have is that it has something to do with getting rid of the Mist. One of the kidnappers has a French accent. French Accent is heading towards the Hunters of Artemis. Hmmm . . . well no children of Hera or Artemis were taken because they don't __**have**__ any children. But Zeus has a child, Thalia. And she isn't a camper she's a . . . Hunter of Artemis. Well that [bleep]ing figures! _I couldn't believe it. I couldn't _freaking _believe it! I had read through every Percy Jackson book at least four times, had the plots practically memorized, and yet I couldn't figure out an evil plot when the clues were staring me in the face. Once again I cursed my ADHD. Then another piece of the puzzle came together: French Accent. What villain in Percy Jackson had a French accent? There was only one answer to that: the manticore known as Doctor Thorn. Crap.

Why couldn't that creep still be in Tartarus? But I knew he was better than Scylla, Medusa, or Polyphemus or Circe. I couldn't figure out why, though. Was he working for Kronos again? I doubted it. Kronos was currently scattered all over the place. It'd probably take him years to gather enough energy to start giving orders again. By the time he got enough energy to receive a body again, we'd all probably be dead of old age. I also doubted that this was all Thorn's doing. Don't get me wrong, the guy's tough and all, but I didn't believe he had the raw power (nor the patience) to control a group of monsters that size. More likely he was one of the higher up grunts. Not completely disposable, but not essential. Well, I was packed, and I glanced at the clock. It said 11:30. Great. Only half an hour until me and Amber left for our epic quest. I'd have to run over to the Hades cabin and clue her in on what I figured out. I walked across the grounds and into Amber's cabin to find her talking to a boy with dark hair. _Nico DiAngelo. Holy crap. When did he get here? _

"Uh, hey Amber," I stepped in, feeling kinda like I intruded on a sibling moment, "I've got some information on our quest." Then I remembered that this was supposed to be a first meeting. I stuck out my hand to Nico. "Hi, I'm Amber's friend. My name's Hope. What's your name?" He shook my hand.

"Nico DiAngelo."

"You Amber's brother?"

"Yup."

"M'kay, well I have to talk to Amber about our quest. Did she tell you that we have to leave soon?"

"Yeah, sure. You can go on ahead. I won't stop you."

"M'kay." I still felt pretty awkward, but you know, whatever. "Amber, I figured who the kidnapper is. It's Dr. Thorn, and he's taking those monsters to the Hunters so he can get Thalia." Nico's eyes widened, and Amber looked irate.

"Aw man, we're facing down the French Freak?" she asked.

"Pretty much." I replied.

"Crap."

"Yeah."

"Whadda they want Thalia for?"

"Her father is Zeus, that alone is enough to send a herd of nasties after her. But I think they're currently after Thalia because they want the children of the major Olympian gods."

"Which would explain why nothing's happened to me." Nico supplied, "Hades isn't technically an Olympian."

"True," I said, "But you should still be careful. Thorn, or whoever he's working for, may decide they want children of all the Big Three." Nico nodded. "Now Amber, are you packed? Because we have to leave in," I checked the clock, "about twenty minutes." Amber held out a backpack full of stuff. "Good. Let's go."

Chiron was waiting as we ascended Half-Blood Hill, along with a good portion of the camp's population, who were looking a bit shell-shocked. Other than what happened with Percy, it was pretty much unheard of for campers as new as us to go on a quest this important. But you know, Amber and I weren't exactly normal, even by demigod standards. Mr. D had arranged with Artemis for us to meet her Hunters outside New York City limits. Argus would drive us, and from there we would come with a plan to keep Thalia safe and track the half-bloods who had already been taken. And figure out who Thorn's working for. And make sure the Mist isn't destroyed. And someday, after all this blew over, assuming we didn't die along the way, we'd have to go home. Don't get me wrong, I loved it at Camp Half-Blood. But we couldn't stay there forever. I could only hope that Amber would recognize that someday, we would have to go back to reality.

**And that there is chapter 11! Next up, the quest begins, and a little of Amber's insight on a particular song.**

**Amber: You know right after I read your review, I had to listen to that and sing along over and over . . . and over . . . and over . . . I think I had a sugar rush from all those dark chocolate chips I ate that afternoon.**

**Anyway, in other completely unrelated news, I will be turning 15 in two days! Woot! Now if only school could just be OVER already! Gods, I feel old. Had to explain the concept of a camera with film to my little brother not too long ago. Little bugger was trying to open up the back of a Minolta so he could 'see the screen'. Apparently he remembered my dad's old video camera, with a screen that flipped out to the side. So **_**then **_**I had to explain that they actually had separate cameras for pictures and videos. Sigh. **


	12. Chapter 12

**Alright so, I'm back, and the quest is finally starting. Hooray! Again, not much to comment on, except if any of you were wondering what me and Amber looked like, that is described (so sorry for not saying something sooner).**

**Disclaimer: Percy Jackson and the Olympians belongs to Rick Riordan. The song 'Absolutely (Story of a Girl)' belongs to Nine Days. I own nothing but the plot, myself, and Amber.**

**Amber: HEY!**

**Me: Just kidding. Amber owns Amber, because one person owning another, my friends, is known as slavery, and is in fact frowned upon in most societies.**

Chapter 12: The Quest Begins

As we were driven away in the camp van, I watched the shape of Thalia's pine tree get smaller and smaller. Suddenly, now that we were leaving, this quest seemed a hell of a lot more real. _Holy crap,_ I thought, _I'm actually going to do this. We're actually going to go save _real _demigods from _real _monsters. Those stories I read and loved . . . they're all real. _Then another, more random occurred to me. _How the Hades does Rick Riordan know about all this? Is he psychic or something? Or did writing about this place actually create it? And what does that make me and Hope? _Despite the fact that we had not been brutally interviewed or dissected or anything, I still got the feeling they didn't completely trust us. The constant glances from Argus in the driver's seat didn't help much, since I was fairly certain he wasn't doing that because we were pretty. Not that we aren't pretty, but . . . hey, wait a minute. Hope and I never told you what we looked like, did we? Oops. Well, I'll tell you now.

We are both fourteen (as you know), and girls (duh). The both of us are skinny, not anorexic skinny (thank the gods), but slender, I guess. I have brown hair that reaches my shoulders and is kind of swishy looking. My eyes are brown also, with a little bit of green mixed in, and I am on the short side. But if I catch you calling me short I _will _send you to my father the hard way. Hope's hair is brown, like mine, except it's longer and a lot bushier. Now that I think about, it actually looks remarkably like Hermione Granger's hair. She also has blue eyes, which look huge because of her glasses. I actually own glasses, but I very rarely wear them. Hope wears hers all the time due to the fact she is very, very nearsighted from all the reading she does. I swear that girl reads a book a day. I love reading, but not _that _much. Since Hope was staring out the window at Manhattan scenery, and Argus didn't seem like he was eager to talk, I pulled my iPod out of my pack and randomly chose a song.

"_This is the story of a girl,_

_Who cried a river and drowned the whole world,_

_And while she looks so sad in photographs,_

_I absolutely love her,_

_When she smiles . . ."_

I'd always wondered what had happened to that girl. Maybe she got displaced from her reality, too. It must have been a pretty nice reality if she was crying enough to drown the world. Hopefully it was better than mine. Or maybe it was worse, and she was crying in relief because she got away.

"_How many days in a year,_

_That she woke up with hope but she only found tears,_

_And I can be so insincere,_

_Making her promises never for real"_

I watched as Hope stared longingly at a billboard advertising _Wicked_. The expression on her face was almost comical. Don't go freaking out about my morals, guys; I'm sure she'll see it someday.

"_As long as she stands there waiting,_

_Wearing the holes in the soles of her shoes,_

_How many days disappear,_

_When you look in the mirror, so how do you choose?"_

How to choose, indeed. On one hand, the reality I had come from was my home. It was familiar, and safe. On the other hand, this world was . . . _amazing. _All the things that had worried me back home; homework, television, grades, it all seemed so trivial now. Here, I could _save the world._

"_Your clothes never wear as well the next day,_

_And your hair never falls in quite the same way, _

_But you never seem to run out of things to say"_

I decided I wanted to meet this girl. There did appear to be things we had in common. Granted, I have never cried enough to drown the world, but I did have a bunch of crap in my life, as well as an almost never-ending supply of snappy comebacks. The next few minutes I just looked out the window and listened. The song was on repeat, but I didn't feel like changing it. My brain was as silent as my traveling companions, until the van came to a screeching halt. Then my thought process went into overdrive, consisting mainly of thoughts such as _holy crap!_, _what the hell?_, and others. My head jerked up, and Hope screamed as there was a _THUD _on top of the vehicle.

A preteen girl in silver camouflage was sprawled out across the van's hood. The impact of the landing had cracked our windshield and left the girl out cold. I was scared. Regardless of age (which was almost definitely not the age she looked), this girl was a Hunter. A _freaking _Hunter. An immortal chick with serious archery skills and (most likely) a ton of fighting experience. Any monster that could toss her in the air like a rag doll to come crashing down on our hood was a monster I should watch out for. Completely forgetting about the headphones still in my ears, I jerked open the door to the camp van and jumped out.

The camp was a mess. Tents were knocked down; timber wolves were running loose everywhere and any Hunter that wasn't badly injured was fighting the platoon of Laistrygonian giants that had attacked. At the monster choice I was a little insulted. _We got the snake ladies and hounds from heck, and they get the eight foot cannibal giants? No fair!_ But thinking about it now, I guess that while Thorn was trying to distract us with numbers he seemed to realize the Hunters wouldn't go for that, so he had to acquire monsters with a certain amount of skill. Well, maybe not _skill_, considering their IQ levels, but strength, I guess. Regardless, the Hunters had their hands full. I leaped from the vehicle and ran to assist, Hope trailing just behind me, dagger out and at the ready.

"_Well your clothes never wear as well the next day,_

_And your hair never falls in quite the same way,_

_But you never seem to run out of things to say . . . "_

**And there you have it! Chapter 12! In other completely unrelated news, I saw WICKED! On mah BIRTHDAY! WOOOOOOOOOOO! *runs in happy circles***

**Amber: Yeah, though in my brother's defense, he IS eight. But he should still remember stuff like that.**


	13. Chapter 13

**Hi guys! I am back! Now, in this chapter, there's a fight, our situation gets slightly more dire, and two new OCs are introduced! Oh, and for any of you Harry Potter fans out there, I saw Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2! **_**Epic **__**movie!**_** Kind of sad, but epic!**

**Disclaimer: I own no one but myself, the plot, Harley and Quinn. Amber belongs to Amber, and the Percy Jackson universe belongs to Rick Riordan.**

Chapter 13: The Hunting of the Hunters

The Hunter camp was in complete chaos. Everywhere I looked there was some type of carnage. Ripped down tents, broken weapons and wounded Hunters were scattered across the campground. Out of nowhere I heard a sort of crazed barking, and I turned around to see a white timber wolf charging at me full speed, foam dripping off of its fang-filled jaws. For one heart stopping second, I seriously thought she was gonna pounce on me, but then she skidded to a halt, regarded me with a look that said, _Oh, you're not a monster. My mistake_, and raced off in a different direction. I let out the breathI hadn't realized I'd been holding, and lunged at the nearest nasty I saw.

A Laistrygonian giant who was tossing around what seemed to be his kind's preferred weapon, the dodgeballs of doom. He was tossing them around and ranting about eating our flesh. You know, the usual. And another thing: Cannibal giants. Another testament to monsters having bad breath. Me and a couple other Hunters fell victim to this when he roared at our faces, like he was trying to scare us off with sound alone. Or his B.O. Whichever. He took a swipe at me (I guess he ran out of dodgeballs), and I ducked under his arm to drive Dikaios in to his stomach. That, combined with the multiple puncture wounds from the Hunter's arrows, made Stinkbreath disintegrate into an explosive _poof _of sulfurous powder. Directly after that, the Hunters from before all scattered to other sections of the battlefield, racing to help their battling sisters. There was an enraged roar, and a fiery explosion as one of the dodgeballs of doom landed not ten feet away from me.

I stumbled back and fell onto the ground, sparks flying and threatening to catch on my clothes and hair. Apparently Stinkbreath had a friend. A friend who was apparently unhappy about his all-too-timely demise. I staggered back up only to be greeted by an enormous fist zooming down to squash me. The giant who was the owner of the aforementioned fist jerked back and roared in pain as a silver arrow dove into his palm. Several more arrows followed, and Friend of Stinkbreath dissolved into dust.

"Hey!" I heard a girl's voice yell, "Bring those arrows back, would ya?" I looked to the speaker, a Hunter close to my age sitting on the ground a few yards away, her bow in hand. My alleged rescuer. The battle had seemingly moved away from our location, so I didn't have to worry about monster attacks. I gathered up the requested ammo and jogged to her location. The Hunter was sitting with her back propped up against a tree because her foot was twisted at a funny angle. I tried really hard not to stare at it when I gave her arrows back.

"Thanks," she said, and gave me a strained smile "I'm Harley. You're from the camp?" I looked her over. Harley had the sort of physique that made me think she had done gymnastics at some point in time and short, curly black hair. She had blue almond shaped eyes and winced when I accidentally nudged her hurt foot. Now that I thought about it, that really did look painful. Remembering the pack I still had on my back, I started rummaging through it as I answered;

"Yeah, I'm from the camp. Camp Half-Blood that is. My name's Hope. My friend Amber and I were sent as preventative measures. You can see how well that's working out." Finally I found what I was looking for: my canteen of nectar. But when I offered it, Harley refused.

"What's wrong?" I asked, "It's nectar. It'll heal you."

"More likely to painfully kill me. That stuff is _god food_. I can't eat god food."

"Why not?" I asked, "I mean, you're a demigod aren't you?" Harley shook her head, "A nymph?" She shook her head again. "Minor god?" That one made her laugh.

"No." I threw my hands in the air.

"This is harder than I thought! What the heck are you?"

"Come on now it can't be that hard!" Harley giggled. Then the proverbial light bulb went off.

"You're mortal!" I exclaimed. Harley clapped mockingly.

"Yup. One of the few who can see through the Mist and one of the fewer who join the Hunt."

"Cool," I said, and was about to ask her how long she'd been a Hunter, when another Laistrygonian came thundering through the shrubbery, this one followed by Amber and a Hunter with blond hair.

"Hey Hope, I'm really glad you're making new friends but we could use a little help here!" Amber shouted.

"Oh, right." I said dumbly, and hurried to join them. This Laistrygonian was taller than the others by about a foot or two, and seemed to be slightly more intelligent, form the way he eyed me as I approached. Perhaps he was trying to figure out who was the biggest threat. Or he was trying to figure out who to eat first after his supposed victory. A bit of a toss-up really. Anyway, eager to get rid of the monster, I began to charge, Dikaios in hand and ready for action, when I was suddenly seized by the back of my Camp Half-Blood t-shirt. Windmilling my arms at the sudden loss of momentum, I stumbled backwards and managed not to fall on my butt. Then I turned around to glare at the blond Hunter who'd grabbed me. She glared right back, narrowing a pair of gray-green eyes at me.

"What do you think you're doing?" She asked in a surprisingly calm voice.

"Uh . . . going to kill the cannibal?" I ventured.

"Without a plan of attack?" She inquired in that exceedingly calm voice.

"Well, I'm kinda new at this. I don't exactly know any battle strategies just yet." The blond furrowed her brow in confusion.

"So they just sent you two here," she gestured at me and Amber, "With no knowledge of attack strategies?"

"Quinn, I thought I told you this already," Amber said, "And you say that like it's a bad thing." At that point our Laistrygonian adversary had decided he was tired of being ignored and charged at us, a dodgeball of doom in each hand.

"Hit the deck!" I screamed, and dove to the ground, yanking Amber and Quinn down with me as a fireball streaked over our heads.

"Heroes!" the Laistrygonian bellowed, "I shall roast your insignificant flesh and eat it until my belly is full!"

"_No_, really?" Amber shot back, "I thought you became a cannibal by learning ballet!" At that moment there was complete and total understanding between me and Quinn. Amber would be the distraction.

A few minutes later, the three of us had a rough plan sketched out. Harley had been moved to a safe location and we were ready to commence. Amber was still a tad grumpy about her position as 'bullet monkey' as she called it. Nevertheless, we had her agreement, and that was what mattered. Quinn and I took positions on either side of the giant as Amber jumped in front of him.

"Hey, Ugly!" she called, "Don't you know tall is overrated?" he bent down to look her in the eye, one scrawny (to him) daughter of Hades holding one (again to him) small black sword.

"Hmm," he rumbled, "You are smaller than most demigods I eat. Perhaps the rare flavor will make up for it. Perhaps not."

"_Did you just call me short?"_ Amber screeched. I knew right then and there that giant was doomed. "You better not have called me short because I've got news for you, pal! I am not _short_, I am _fun-size. Fun-fricking-size!_ You got that?" I had to admit, Amber was doing a good job as a distraction. _Too _good of a job. Quinn was staring at her, openmouthed as her bow hung limply by her side. I was a bit more used to Amber's antics and thus was not affected. So I was frantically trying to signal Quinn from the other side of the monster. I tried waving my arms, throwing acorns at her, and reflecting sunlight into her eyes using my dagger. When at the last part she did nothing but hold her hand up and blink, I abandoned all pretenses, and screamed;

"QUINN! Amber's supposed to be distracting the monster, not you! Get your butt in gear and shoot him already!" Good news: I got Quinn's attention. Bad news: the cannibalistic giant was now aware that Amber was a distraction, and that we were trying to kill him from behind. With an angry roar, he seized the nearest sneaking demigod, who happened to be me (damn Quinn and her long-range weaponry), and threw me twenty yards away, where I landed headfirst in a bush. At least I wrestled my way out in time to see the grand finale.

Amber had charged at the Laistrygonian, Nyx held high. And as she jumped up, a platform of black rock rose up to give her a boost. The blade of her black sword came down smack-dab in the middle of the cannibal's scalp. The properties of the Stygian iron absorbed his essence as it descended, so the monster descended as Amber sliced him open from stem to stern. All I could think was _Holy crap that was cool._ I probably would have stood there gawking longer, and possibly gone to join Amber and my new Hunter friends, except a very large foot came along and punted me back into my bush. I looked up to see the offender carrying away a limp figure. A limp figure with black hair and a silver circlet. _Fudge_.

I disentangled myself, more quickly this time, but before I could do anything, the air seemed to warp, like a funhouse-mirror effect, and they were gone. Poof. Needless to say, I was not happy to be the bearer of bad news. The bad news (do I really have to state this?) being that Thorn and his allies had Thalia. This quest just got a whole lot more complicated. Silently dreading what I was about to say, I made my way over to where Amber and Quinn were treating Harley's wounds. Her foot had been wrapped and color was returning to her cheeks. Harley waved as I came over, and Amber greeted me with one of her little quips,  
"Hey, Hope, I was wondering where you went. Some fight, huh? Hopefully no one got eaten. That would suck." Then a beat later, "Why are there leaves in your hair?"

**Reviews:**

**Hero's Legacy: Aww, thanks! :D**

**Amber: Yes, those are two lovely songs to listen to. But I must recommend you listen to 'Shut Up and Smile' by Bowling for Soup. I think you would find it entertaining. And yeah, I miss your journal feedback. :/**

**Well, that's all for this chap *does bad Terminator impression* I'll be back. Asta la vista, readers.**


	14. Chapter 14

**Hey there everybody! As you readily see, I have returned! And thanks for the reviews last chapter, guys, they made me feel better. I was startin' to think Amber was the only one who remembered me. Anyway, moving on.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Percy Jackson. If I did, I'd be freaking rich.**

Chapter 14: Our Party Expands

I was, in a word, depressed. French Accent had taken yet another demigod out from under our noses. And if I was doing the math right, they now had all the heroes they needed. Fudge. Oh, did I tell you guys? I named my sword! I call it Nyx, the name of the Greek goddess of night. Because that's what the Stygian iron blade looks like. A starless, endless night. But I'm getting off topic. Artemis was quite unhappy about her lieutenant going MIA. We said that we would be handling it, but someone (*cough*Quinn*cough*) felt it necessary to tell the Goddess of the Hunt about our lack of battle experience. So now Artemis was going to select a Hunter or two to go with us. A little while after the battle, we were informed that Good-shot-but-has-a-kinda-bad-foot Harley, and Tactical-genius-that-is-easily-distracted Quinn would be the ones coming on mine and Hope's quest, which kinda made us the unofficial leaders. Hmm. I wasn't particularly sure why Artemis chose Quinn and Harley. Maybe she wanted to minimize exposure to our special brand of insanity. There could've been another reason, but I prefer that one, since Artemis was giving Hope and me some pretty funny looks. Maybe she heard about the master bolt thing on Olympus. But I'm getting off topic again, so let's move on.

"So how are you guys going to help us find the half-bloods?" I asked our new companions after we'd been given the news in the tent.

"We," Harley indicated Quinn and herself, "Can track and lead you to Thalia, and presuming they're all being held in the same place, the other missing heroes as well."

"How?" Hope asked, "I don't think teleportation leaves a trail of any kind. And wait a minute Harley, how'd your foot get better so quickly if can't ingest ambrosia?"

"Artemis," the brunette Hunter answered, "The Goddess used her magic on it. My foot is fixed, and it might be a little tender at the most. As for tracking . . ." Quinn came forward, holding a compass and a scrap of silver cloth. Noting the confusion on mine and Hope's faces, she placed the cloth in the center of the little silver compass. Then to my amazement, the compass needle began to spin, faster and faster, until it was a blur of movement. Then the needle came to a sudden halt, pointing to the setting sun behind us. West. Why did it always have to be west?

"Quinn," I asked, "How does your compass know that we need to go west?"  
"Well, Amber, it's not actually a compass," Quinn explained, "It's a tracker. You place a possession on the center, and the needle will point you in the direction of the owner. This," she gestured at the scrap of cloth, "Came from Thalia's jacket. So now we can get a directional lead on where she went."

"But we can't get an exact location?" Quinn shook her head. "Well, a directional lead is better than nothing. Let's go, shall we?" Uber-prepared Hunters they were, Harley and Quinn had packs of medical and hunting supplies and whatnot with them already. We set off on foot as the sun was still sinking into the sky. Quinn's compass (yeah, I know she said it was a tracker, but it looks like a freakin' compass) led us out of the forest and into a peaceful little suburb. At least, it _was_ peaceful. Then we got there. Night had fallen, and we were walking down the main street when I, at the back of the group, heard a boy's nervous voice.

"Uh, Angie . . . I don't think we're ready for this."

"Oh come on," a girl purred, "You're just nervous. Don't worry; I'll take good care of you." I instinctively turned my head toward the noise, and saw two teenagers in an alleyway. The boy had his shirt off and the girl was nuzzling his neck. Now that by itself wasn't all that unusual, but something felt off. First of all, I couldn't figure out why I kept smelling barnyard. Second, there was something wrong with the way the guy looked. His eyes didn't look right, and his expression seemed to have gone slack. I looked back my companions who were proceeding down the street, made a snap decision and darted towards the alleyway.

My common sense was telling me that this was a bad idea, but I didn't want to call the whole gang on what could just be a couple of teenagers ahem, showing their affections. I crept up on the couple on silent feet, trying to get a closer. Don't get the wrong idea; I'm not a perv or anything. I just wanted to make sure nothing supernatural was going on here. The girl was still nuzzling the boy's neck, and now I could clearly see the vague, glassy look that had taken residence in his gaze. Unless he was drugged (which I honestly kinda doubted), something weird was definitely going on. I focused my mind and tried to dispel the false image the Mist was creating. Bit by bit, the disguise of the pretty girl fell away, and was replaced by chalky white skin, smoldering hair, and mismatched bronze and animal legs. An empousa! An empousa ready to sink her teeth into the poor, unsuspecting dude's neck. Alright then, time for stealth: over.

"Yaaaaah!" I yelled, jumping out from behind a trash can and brandishing my sword in an energetic matter. "Die demon!" Angie the Empousa snarled, released her 'date', and began to stalk towards me with her hair aflame. The guy (I'm going to call him Joey) made a very unmanly noise and ducked behind another trash can (seriously? What is it with alleys and trash cans?) I didn't have much time to think, however, because Angie the Empousa kicked in the shin with her donkey leg. I swore colorfully in Greek, then bopped her on the head with the hilt of my sword. Okay, so slicing her to ribbons probably would've been more effective, I have this issue with thinking before I act. And this was about the point where I was taken completely by surprise as I was clobbered from behind with a trash can lid.

"Lay off my girlfriend, you psycho!" Joey yelled. Seriously? Why can't the Mist actually show the _monsters _doing stuff, instead of the half-blood who inevitably has to come save the day? Really, they don't even have to be shown as monsters; just give credit where credit is due. It's kind of annoying being perceived as the bad guy all the time. So now I had a monster _and _a mortal to deal with. Joy. While I'd been distracted Angie gave me a hard shove, and I landed on my butt in the dirt. Now I was already in a bad mood, but that was the last straw.

"Oh, it's _on_ now!" I snarled and, abandoning my sword, tackled her. If you think there were demonic or demigod powers involved in this particular conflict, you'd actually be quite wrong. This was a good old-fashioned catfight, plain and simple. See? You don't have to be a half-blood to fight monsters. Wait maybe you do. Most regular people cannot see the true forms of many things (hence Joey's moronic attack on me), and that can slightly impede one's progress. Whether you don't recognize the person sitting next to you as something unnatural or you get paranoid and attack that poor homeless guy across the street. Anyhow, back to the catfight.

I had actually been in physical fights prior to this experience, and apparently so had Angie. That witch took a big ol' fistful of my hair and yanked, taking full advantage of the fact I couldn't do it back. A few dozen strands came ripping out, and I yelped. In full retaliation mode, I drove my knee into her stomach, then landed a punch on her nose, and was quite satisfied when I felt something break. One hand still gripping my hair, Angie raked her claws down my arm, but I was too pumped full of adrenaline to notice or care. Using a well known technique I slammed Angie's head repeatedly into the concrete, willing her to sink into unconsciousness. This caused sparks to fly from her hair and catch in the trash, starting a fire that was quickly beginning to spread.

It was Joey's frantic yelling that snapped me and my adversary out of it as we noticed the rapidly growing flames. Jumping off of my demonic foe, I scooped up Nyx and whirled back around to finish the job . . . just in time to see the flash and hear the click of Joey's camera phone. He _would _take a picture. Jerk! Losing his nerve, Joey yanked his 'girlfriend' to her feet and out of the alleyway. When they were about ten feet out she came to her senses and began to stalk towards me again, throwing Joey off her like he was a piece of litter. That was her fatal mistake, as a silver arrow flew out of nowhere to impale her side.

I don't think Angie even had time to register what had happened before becoming the power-fanned sand castle. This left me standing in a still-burning alley, which I quickly made my way out of. There was Joey, who was looking extremely confused, and, further down the street, my quest companions. Quinn was still holding up her bow, and was also eyeing me with the universal 'you are _so _in trouble' glare. Gulp. Harley went to go help Joey, but he squeaked in fear and ran away as fast as his legs could carry him. Probably to tell the police all about his encounter with a pyromaniac girl gang. I guess all's well that ends well, but it really made me wonder, could getting rid of the Mist really be such a bad thing?

**Reviews:**

**Amain 4ever: Yes, they probably would, but there will inevitably come that 'well meaning' scientist who thinks: **_**Ooh! Let's see what this does to their genetic structure!**_** Then the military gets involved and it's all one big mess. And keep in mind with no Mist; ****everyone**** would be able to see monsters, thus leading to mass panic. But you do, however, raise a good point about people not believing. **

**Heros Legacy: Amber will be glad to know she has a fun-sized kindred spirit! And I won't say anything about spelling unless I don't know what you're saying.**

**: Glad you like it!**

**Amber: Congrats on your phone! Though the 'sorta' implies it's not all that great. : P Oh well. At least you're not Erin and your uncle won't throw it out the car window.**

**White Fairy Writer: Thanks! I enjoy your story as well.**

**Flamingfawkes007: Again, thank you. And you can never be too old for Percy Jackson or Harry Potter. It is simply impossible.**

**Well, that's all for now everybody. Thanks again for the reviews, and I'll see you all next chapter. ****¡****Adios amigos!**


	15. Chapter 15

**I LIIIIIIIIVVVE! And I am sooooo sorry I haven't gotten this out sooner! I could give you guys a whole list of excuses as to why, but I'm pretty sure you don't want to hear/read about them. So, without further ado, this chapter.**

**Disclaimer: You all know the drill. I do not own Percy Jackson, nor will I ever. Le sighs . . .**

Chapter 15: Travel troubles

I'll admit that I was scared when the empousa came from the alley. Despite the fact that she was dazed and slightly off-balance, my eyes kept straying to her sharp fangs, smoldering hair, and deceptively pretty face. All designed for a predator. Next to her, and my friends, I felt quite ordinary, as if I was just noticing the differences in power between us.

But thoughts like that could wait. I felt a wash of relief when Amber stumbled out of the combusted alleyway. In the back of my head I had remembered, that in Greek myth, as a general rule of thumb, things were supposed to go in threes. Three Fates. Three Furies. Three sons of Kronos. Three _daughters_ of Kronos. You get the idea.

As you may have noticed, we did _not _have three questers in this mission. That didn't exactly end well in The Titan's Curse if you can recall. Everything worked out okay in The Battle of the Labyrinth, but I think that was a special case. So, it could be argued that we were pushing our luck with two heroes on this quest, then four. I was all but certain the Fates had something in store for us. After Quinn destroyed the she-demon, her would-be victim ran away in fright when Harley tried to help him, and Quinn stomped up to Amber to read her the riot act. It was a little hard to follow, because she switched between English and Greek a bunch of times, but I caught the gist of it. A lot about reckless abandon, what she had been thinking, how she could have called for backup, et cetera. Even from a distance I could tell Amber was ignoring her. _Quinn_ hadn't been able to tell, thank the gods, or things would have gotten a lot worse.

I was further down the street than the rest of my companions, as I was walking at a more sedate pace now that the danger had passed. And as I approached, I caught sight of the empousa's remains, which consisted of a pile of dust and a pair of earrings. Curious as to why they would have been left behind, I picked them up and dusted them off. They were dainty little things, I was lucky to have spotted them. Four strands of silver wound down from the hook and ended in tiny dots of obsidian. Since Amber was the one to actually battle the source of these spoils of war, I suggested to my friends giving them to her. Quinn objected to this as I presented my find.

"You can't reward her for running off and doing something stupid! All that'll do is encourage her to do it more! Besides, she didn't even _kill_ the beast."

"Yeah, but _you _didn't have to do the catfight!" Amber snapped, rubbing a small bald spot on her head. _Ugh._ I could see where this is going. The argument wasn't about the earrings, per se, they were just the catalyst that caused Amber and Quinn's personalities to really collide. In case you aren't familiar, I'll give you a quick summary: Quinn liked to plan. Amber likes to slash first and think later. And while Quinn tries to hold back at least _some _of the impulsive craziness that comes with being ADHD, Amber embraces it. I sensed this wasn't going to be the first verbal spar they'd have, but send me to Tartarus if I wasn't going to try and keep it from getting any worse. I considered trying to end this argument by giving the earrings to Harley, but on closer inspection I saw her ears weren't pierced. _Crap._

"Alright," I said, stepping between my quarreling friends. "Here's what we're gonna do. You," I handed an earring to Amber, "get one. And you," I passed the other one to Quinn, "get the other. I know you two aren't exactly BFF material, but let's do our best to refrain from killing each other, okay? Now let's go, we're wasting time." And with that, I turned on my heel and started marching back down the street. A moment later I could hear the others following me. Nobody really spoke as we reached the edge of town and stopped to sleep for the night, or the next morning. The first to speak again was Harley, as we approached a train station.

"Hey," she ventured as we drew closer, "Why don't we stop and get on a train? We'll get there a lot faster if we're not on foot."

"True," Quinn admitted, "But keep in mind we still don't know exactly where we're going. Things like trains or even buses follow set routes, and could either overshoot our destination or take us in the wrong direction." So that killed the option of public transportation, and since none of us looked old enough to drive, and Amber wasn't allowed to shadow travel (long story), that left us walking. Which, I have to say, sucked. We didn't know exactly where we were going, not to mention if we would even get there in time. Why did Quinn have to have a tracking _compass_ anyway? Why not a tracking GPS? Then again, we at least had a direction to go in, if nothing else. Unhappy but resigned, we all trudged along. Where's godly teleportation when you need it? _Sigh._

Luckily, after nearly another day of hiking, we came upon a bicycle shop. Our drachmas definitely had enough mortal value to buy four bikes, and we agreed to give it a try. Not an incredibly fast method of transport, I know, but it definitely beat walking. The store was near closing when we entered, so we were the only patrons. Anyone else had already cleared out.

"Excuse me," Harley said to the man behind the register, "We need four fast bikes that can handle off-roading. And don't worry about pay," she plopped several drachmas on the counter, "We've got it covered." I thought the dude's eyes were going to fall pout of his head. He looked us over much more closely, possibly trying to figure out if Harley was a teen actor or royalty or something. His gaze may have lingered a little longer over Amber and Quinn, but it was probably nothing.

"Wait right here," He said finally, "I think I have something in the back." Ducking into the back room, the man disappeared. Harley sighed and slid her backpack off her shoulders, sinking down to rest on the floor. The rest of us soon followed suit.

"Well, that guy definitely looked surprised to see drachmas." Amber noted.

"Well duh," I said "People don't usually walk around carting gold coins in their pockets."

"And definitely not a group of dusty girls." Harley added. We all agreed to that. And for a while we just sat there, in silence, waiting for the cashier. After a good number of minutes Amber started fidgeting, and our Hunter friends started to look worried. _What's taking him so long?_ Then we heard the sirens.

"_This is the authorities. Come out with your hands over your head." Di immortales! _The four of us leapt up in a synchronized motion, seizing our weapons from instinct. Shaking with barely suppressed fury, Amber marched into the back room and came out dragging the shop owner, the man behind the register, by the collar.

"Why'd you call the cops?" she demanded, angrily brandishing her sword. Squinting, I shifted my vision so I could see what the man saw through the Mist. So to him Amber appeared to be carrying a crowbar. No, wait, it wasn't a crowbar, it was a sword again . . . but now it was . . . back to being a crowbar? I took off my glasses and rubbed my eyes. This whole half-vision deal could get really annoying sometimes. At least, that's what I thought it was, until Harley tapped on the shoulder.

"Hope, look at his face," she whispered, "He sees it changing too." And upon peering closer at Amber's would-be victim, I realized what she was talking about. There was fear on the man's face, plenty of that, but there was also confusion, and most of it was directed at the length of black metal in Amber's hand. Maybe he was a half-blood? I sent Harley a questioning glance, and she diagonally nodded her head like _go check_. By this time, the shop owner had finally gathered his wits and responded,

"As a performer of civil duty I try to make sure arsonists in the making are kept away from acceptable society." Then apparently because he was feeling brave, he added, "And you _won't _be making an escape."

"I think we'll be the judges of that." Amber snarled, whilst I slid back, unnoticed, behind him and slowly, very slowly, slid my dagger into the back of his arm. Nothing. It passed through his flesh just like it would an ordinary mortal. But as I was pulling it out, something strange happened. The portion of the store keeper's arm that had been somewhat ghostly in nature suddenly shimmered, and just before I had the blade out, became solid. Now this was while he was still in contact with Celestial bronze, mind you. With a yelp the man finally jerked out of Amber's grasp and vaulted away.

"You stabbed me!" he shouted accusingly.

"No I didn't!" I indignantly replied back, even though I technically did.

"Yes you did!"

"No I didn't!"

"Yes you di-"

"No I didn't!"

"_Di immortales!" _Quinn shouted, "Just let it go!" We shut up.

"This is your final warning," blared the police horn that had been all but forgotten, "Come out with your hands in the air or we _will_ use deadly force." Ahh, deadly force. They always seem to think that'll solve their problems, don't they? So, just to paint a picture of the current scene: Quinn was running escape options; Harley had opened the window and was shouting out at the mortal police, trying to reason with them; I was standing frozen trying to figure out how the Hades Celestial bronze could affect someone; and Amber was still fuming the cops had been called in the first place. So much so, in fact, that a few moments later I smelled something burning.

"_Amber!"_ I shrieked, "Amber, you shoes are on fire!" Sure enough, green flames were flickering around my friend's feet, catching on the floor and spreading fast.

"_#%*!" _Amber shouted, and leaped an impressive height into the air. She wasn't really hurt, of course, but if we stayed too long we'd all be in serious trouble. Harley noticed mine and Amber's outbursts and raced back over from the window.

"We just can't take you anywhere, can we?" She tried to joke. I glared at her, mouthing, _'not helping!'_

"Amber, you're going to have to shadow- travel us out of here," Quinn stated, taking charge of the situation almost instantaneously. She pointed at me and Harley, "But first, you two need to get the mortal out of here."

"He called the cops on us!" Amber argued angrily.

"So he should die?" Quinn raised one blonde eyebrow. Amber dropped her gaze and fell silent. Harley and I went behind the counter where the storekeeper was still cowering. We tried to pull him towards an exit, but the idiot refused to budge. He was muttering wildly under his breath, and I caught words like 'death sword', 'silver arrows', and, perhaps the most disturbing, 'god-children'.

The flames were getting higher, this guy _still _wouldn't move, and we didn't do something we would either get burned or pass out from smoke inhalation. Amber had already taken Quinn away, and I was seriously considering telling Amber to just leave without us when Harley, out of sheer desperation, seized a nearby wrench and clubbed the man over the head with it. Now free of resistance, we dragged the guy across the room as fast and we could, and unceremoniously shoved him out the window. Each of us clutching one of Amber's arms, we hurled ourselves into one of the few remaining shadows. WE emerged in a forest clearing where Quinn was already waiting. Ashy, exhausted, the sounds of sirens ringing in our ears, we stole away into the night.

**You know, when I was typing this, I had this mental image of Jack Skellington dancing around singing, "What's this? What's this? An update now at last? What's this, the author's off her ass? What's this?" Yeah . . . my mind works in strange ways. So, anyhow, reviews:**

**Prowls-little-angel: Thanks for all the reviews! They are very much appreciated. And as for mushroom cloud explosions . . . I don't think we'll have many of those but as you may have noticed (I know I just did), we set quite a few things on fire.**

**IrresoluteSongbird: Thanks! OC-centered stories aren't really my cup of energon either, but there are definitely some great exceptions out there!**

**Amber: Argh, I've left this so long your review is no longer relevant! Curses! See you Monday, dahling!**

**Amain 4ever:**__**I don't want to be rude, but I just don't see that as a realistic reaction the public would have. However, you obviously like SOMETHING about the story if you're still reading it, so could we just agree to disagree on this aspect?**

**Updates will probably not be speeding up any time soon, as I must now hunt down and re-capture my muse. In the meantime, I'm probably going to work on a few other stories as well. 'Till next time! *bows***_**  
**_


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